Jonah Goldberg – a politically conservative American Jew – makes a very strong case for that thesis; many of the immigrants are not voting “socialist” because they want to parasitically leech off of others, but rather because they are not Christian and the Republican Party strongly identifies with the Christian faith and Judeo-Christian moral and social values. And so groups such as Asians vote overwhelmingly Democrat even though they themselves are hard-working people who otherwise would not want the socialism of the Democrat Party.
I ultimately disagree with Jonah Goldberg’s assertion – that the Republican Party must “de-Christianize” itself in order to compete with the Democrat Party for a post-Christian American culture as that culture prepares itself to worship the beast and take his mark. Rather, I cite this to document just how hostile to Jesus Christ the Democrat Party has become and by extension how traitorous to the name of Jesus that Democrats who call themselves “Christian” truly have become:
Goldberg: The GOP — not a club for Christians
Perhaps the most common explanation for the Republican Party’s problem with Asian Americans is its pronounced embrace of Christianity.
By Jonah Goldberg
December 11, 2012In the scramble to make the GOP more diverse, a lot of people are looking at Asian Americans, whom many believe are a natural constituency for the party. I would love it if Asian Americans converted en masse to the Republican Party, but the challenge for Republicans is harder than many appreciate.
President Obama did spectacularly well with Asian Americans, garnering nearly three-quarters of their vote. This runs counter to a lot of conventional wisdom on both the left and the right. On average, Asian American family income is higher and poverty is lower than it is for non-Latino whites. Entrepreneurship, family cohesion and traditional values all run strong among Asian Americans, and reliance on government runs weak.
And yet, Asian Americans — now the fastest-growing minority in America — are rapidly becoming a core constituency of the Democratic Party.
I’ve joked for years with my Indian American relatives and friends that they are the new Jews because their parents bury them in guilt and overeducate them. Sociologist Milton Himmelfarb observed that “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Well, Indian Americans earn like Jews and … vote like Jews.
The comparison to Jews is instructive. Perhaps the most common explanation for the GOP’s problem with Asian Americans is the party’s pronounced embrace of Christianity, which turns off many Jews as well.
According to Pew studies, barely a third of Chinese Americans are Christian and less than a fifth of Indian Americans are.
“Whenever a Gujarati or Sikh businessman comes to a Republican event, it begins with an appeal to Jesus Christ,” conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza recently told the New York Times magazine. “While the Democrats are really good at making the outsider feel at home, the Republicans make little or no effort.” My friend and colleague Ramesh Ponnuru, an Indian American and devout Catholic, says the GOP has a problem with seeming like a “club for Christians.”
That rings true to me. I’ve attended dozens of conservative events where, as the speaker, I was, in effect, the guest of honor, and yet the opening invocation made no account of the fact that the guest of honor wasn’t a Christian. I’ve never taken offense, but I can imagine how it might seem to someone who felt like he was even less part of the club.
A few years ago, Robert Putnam, a liberal sociologist, reported this finding: As racial and ethnic diversity increases, social trust and cohesion plummets. “Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer,” Putnam found. “People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle.”
The villain isn’t racism or bigotry or anything so simple. The phenomenon is much more complex. Indeed, it’s not clear why this happens, but it’s clear that it does. Economic inequality and cultural attitudes do not matter much. “Americans raised in the 1970s,” Putnam writes, “seem fully as unnerved by diversity as those raised in the 1920s.”
Part of the explanation stems from the fact that people with shared experiences and cultures draw strength from working together, whereas with strangers, language often becomes guarded, intentions questioned.
The GOP is not a Christian club, but there’s no disputing that Christianity is a major source of strength and inspiration for many Republican activists. This is nothing new. The abolitionist, progressive and civil rights movements were all significantly powered by Christian faith.
As someone who’s long argued for theological pluralism and moral consensus on the right, it strikes me as nuts for the GOP not to do better with Asian Americans, particularly given how little religion has to do with the policy priorities of the day.
Twenty years ago, conservatives started referring to Judeo-Christian values in an effort to be more inclusive. The challenge now is to figure out how to talk in a way that doesn’t cause decent and dedicated Christians to pull in like a turtle, while also appealing to non-Judeo-Christians and the nonreligious. That’ll be hard, requiring more than name-dropping Confucius or Krishna.
Now, one can go back and look over my blog and see how many times I have used the term “Judeo-Christianity” to refer to my own faith and worldview. Here’s an example of my using that term as a reference to my faith in an article that also shows how determined Democrats are to undermine Christianity while promoting radical Islam in the guise of “cultural diversity.” If that is all Goldberg is telling us to do, I’m already walking across that ground. But the deterioration of our culture in this post-Christian era and the demonic divide-and-conquer nature of the Democrat Party has made anything short of abandonment of Jesus the only way we can reach the “potential Republican” minority groups that Goldberg is describing.
But my faith is far more important to me than my political party, and it simply isn’t an option.
Goldberg cites a statement by Dinesh D’Souza – a deeply Christian man of Indian descent I truly respect and admire – as saying that the Republicans (or should I more correctly say “the Christians” given that that’s who we’re really talking about) – have done a very poor job making “outsiders” feel at home. And while that may be true, I can again point to my own example: in my church, which is overwhelmingly Republican, we started a Hispanic ministry years ago and now have a substantial Hispanic congregation. We have a large ESL program on our church campus. The Anglo congregation that devoted the resources to do these things is well over ninety percent Republican. And many evangelical congregations who view themselves as “Judeo-Christian” have done the same things and more.
But that has done nothing to stem the tide of a massive wave of illegal immigrants pouring into America and helping the Democrat Party to transform our country into the failed socialist state from which those illegal immigrants fled.
To quote the sub-title (which Goldberg likely did not write), “Perhaps the most common explanation for the Republican Party’s problem with Asian Americans is its pronounced embrace of Christianity.” I write as somebody who doesn’t believe the “pronounced embrace of Christianity” IS NOT A BAD THING THAT SHOULD BE STOPPED.
I am not writing this to in any way attack Jonah Goldberg. He’s another man I deeply respect and I am very glad that he’s on the side of political conservativism. I am merely citing his very correct and well-documented thesis that Christianity is the real target of Democrats while disagreeing with his “cure” for what I could call “the Republican Party’s Christian problem.”
There is simply more going on here.
The Bible told us in numerous passages such as 2 Timothy 3:1-5 that in the last days, there would be an increasing departure from the Judeo-Christian worldview and faith. And when you look at the true debt of America – $222 trillion PLUS which doesn’t take into account the massive union-public pension debt of states like California which by itself has $500 billion in unfunded liabilities – you need to realize that America is very much in those “last days” just before Antichrist comes. Revelation chapter 13 tells us that Antichrist will be the ultimate big government liberal who will so “socialize” the economy that his government will completely take over the “private sector” and impose a system of complete government control over the monetary system and the ability of the people to buy and sell. Democrats will embrace his coming; they will worship him; and they will take his mark on their right hand or their foreheads. Because the man described in Revelation as “the beast” will be the epitome of everything the Democrat Party has spent the last fifty years trying to impose: a one-world system in which the state controls the economy.
Jonah Goldberg cites a liberal sociologist in a telling passage:
A few years ago, Robert Putnam, a liberal sociologist, reported this finding: As racial and ethnic diversity increases, social trust and cohesion plummets. “Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer,” Putnam found. “People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle.”
This is what is really happening: liberals have divided America into a land in which they divide women against men and race against race and Marxist class against capitalist class. And as they have poured their demagoguery and demonization and hate on whites and on men and most especially on evangelical Christians, the fruits of their hate is “the plummeting of social trust and cohesion.” And Democrats have been cynically exploited the fractures and divisions they have created, because as “social trust and cohesion plummets”, there is more opportunity to create more of the same, and still more of the same, until the Democrat Party divides and conquers and exploits its way to power.
And the Marxist class rage – described here – is the most powerful tractor that Democrats have to rage their way to power. In short, Karl Marx asserted that “religion is the opium of the masses” because of his view that the Christianity of the Russian people kept them content even in their poverty and difficulty. Marx believed that rather than embrace the “opium” of faith and the teachings of Jesus to BE content in poverty, the poor should throw off the shackles of Christian contentment and happiness and instead rise up in a spirit of rage and violence and seize what was theirs by force and kill anyone who tried to stop them. That’s Marxism. That’s also Obama’s Liberation Theology.
It’s not that liberals, socialists, communists, fascists, Democrats – whatever the hell you want to call these sons of hell – don’t love religion. It is just that they ONLY love religion if said religion advances the cause of their TRUE GOD of a big government which is intended to be the “savior” that replaces the true Savior Jesus Christ. Don’t search for the peace, contentment and happiness of Jesus; rise up in anger and hate and demand what you greedily say is yours instead. It was the tactic that Karl Marx created and it is that very same tactic that Barack Obama and the Democrat Party embrace today; God has failed you and you need to replace Him with the State. Kick Jesus off the throne and let Government be your savior and the only savior with whom you have to do. Obama is your messiah and Obama will save you with big government programs. And Democrats have very literally pissed on Jesus Christ even as they forced taxpayers to fund that urination on Jesus and on His cross:
Because the “Piss Christ” attitude of liberalism and of the Democrat Party has replaced the Judeo-Christian values that propelled America to greatness, the nation now known as “God Damn America!” is about to go down and go down hard.
What kind of “religion” do liberals love? Well, take the “Christianity” of Barack Obama and his spiritual leader and reverend Jeremiah Wright and their Liberation Theology; liberation theology came about in the 1970s as the Marxist Sandinistas struggled to dominate a population that was over ninety percent Catholic. Heretical Marxist priests packaged communism with Christian slogans such that Jesus became a communist. Cardinal Ratzinger – today better known as Pope Benedict – decried this “faith” as a true demonic heresy:
“…it would be illusory and dangerous to ignore the intimate bond which radically unites them (liberation theologies), and to accept elements of the Marxist analysis without recognizing its connections with the (Marxist) ideology, or to enter into the practice of the class-struggle and of its Marxist interpretation while failing to see the kind of totalitarian society to which this process slowly leads.“ – (Author: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect, now Pope Benedict XVI; written in 1984)
And:
“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.” — Pope Benedict XVI
Jonah Goldberg doesn’t grasp this terrible prophetic truth even though as a Jew his own Book of Daniel described it. He thinks some gimmick or word-game or abandonment of “Christianity” will somehow save the Republican Party. But the Republican Party is dying just as everything that made America great is dying as we become a nation that will worship the beast just as the Bible told us would happen.
We can’t be more like the party of hell and not expect hell.
If the Republican Party abandons Christianity to woo voters, it will stand for nothing; if it becomes more like the Democrat Party to compete with liberalism, it will join the Democrats in “fundamentally transforming” itself into the party of hell.
And if you don’t mind my saying, liberals form the army of hell. We’ve watched unions strike at businesses the last couple of weeks during the rush of the Holiday shopping season much the way terrorists would strike; because what the unions did was sheer economic terrorism. We saw the SEIU (that’s Obama’s bestest friend) union target Los Angeles International Airport on Thanksgiving – which happens to be the single largest flying day of the entire year. Even though they were lying about the hardships that were being suffered by employees who were actually trying to get the hell OUT of their union. That’s economic terrorism, waiting to strike at your enemy when and where it will cause him the most harm; especially if there’s lots of collateral damage with the American people being incredibly put upon by the lengthy delays and the canceled flights while trying to see their families. We saw unions targeting Wal-Mart on Black Friday – the busiest shopping day of the year – trying to cause as much harassment and disruption as they could (it turned out they were far weaker than they figured they’d be). We actually saw 5,000 Baker’s Union workers at Hostess decide to destroy a major and beloved corporation and eradicate 18,500 jobs by forcing them into liquidation. That’s economic terrorism. We saw a handful of union clerical workers shut down the massive Port of Long Beach for eight days and cost the Port over $8 billion in lost productivity in an attempt to force their way. According to the LA Times, “600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods” on that port; but 800 union workers decided to shut it down during the rush of the Christmas shopping season when they could do the most devastating (i.e., economic terrorist) damage. And no other union worker would cross the picket line no matter how immoral and insane the union protest was. Because if you’re in a damn union, you are literally just that evil and that selfish and that hateful and that bitter. And you refuse to cross the picket line for other stupid strikes so other unions won’t cross the picket line for your stupid strike.
Today, as I write, unions went violently nuts as Michigan tried to save itself by allowing people to actually have a right to work without being forced to pay union dues even if you don’t want to belong to the union. Union thugs attacked a right to work group called Americans for Prosperity and forcibly tore down their tent with people inside; they also physically attacked a journalist named Steven Crowder just for asking a few questions – with union thugs literally repeatedly punching him in the face. One is distinctly heard threatening to murder him with a gun.
Just yesterday an “arbitrator” decided that thirteen stoners and potheads ought to have a job at Chrysler for life because they’re in the UAW and that’s how thug unions work. Because, yeah, they got caught on CAMERA by a REPORTER getting stoned and drunk during their break but apparently Chrysler doesn’t have a right to decent or safe or useful workers in a union shop. Chrysler fired them after seeing the video and noting that they were easily able to identify the specific workers who were getting drunk and stoned, but the union went to bat for their fellow wastoid thugs and forced Chrysler to reinstate them no matter how despicable they are. And thus the criminal UAW guaranteed that thirteen lowlife scumbags can continue to crappily build the crappy cars your parents and your spouses and your children will be driving. Until Chrysler goes bankrut just like Hostess did, anyway.
Today a Democrat congressman named Douglas Geiss threatened an eruption of violence from his side, claiming – and I quote – “There will be blood on the streets.” Imagine the uproar that would be caused by a Republican congressman predicting violence from Republicans if they didn’t get their way on the fiscal cliff talks. But it’s a liberal, so threatening violence is okay. In the same way, asking for quid pro quo bribery is okay as long as you’re a liberal, too, judging by another Democrat representative named JoAnn Watson. She literally specifically stated the precise technical language of an illegal act in urging Obama to commit precisely that illegal act in paying Detroit back for its vote for him. Again, she’s a liberal, so her role in the destruction of the democratic political system for a quid pro quo political racketeering system is also okay.
This isn’t about economics; workers in right to work states enjoy substantially more personal income growth and higher real wages than workers in forced union states (see here for more). Rather unions represent one army of hell in the corps of a truly demonic liberal army of hell that is seeking to throw religion out of America while it has murdered fifty-five million innocent human babies in abortion mills and imposed homosexual marriage and the destruction of the American family. They’ve already crippled our criminal justice system with the liberal army of hell led by the ACLU and turned most of the large urban cities of America into violent, drug-ridden hellholes for welfare-dependent single mothers.
That liberal army of hell is going to win. God has sovereignly decreed that very soon, the forces of hell are going to get their way in America and the rest of the world. America will get the leader it truly deserves in the form of Antichrist just as now has the leader it truly deserves in the form of Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Senate.
The Tribulation that the books of Daniel and Revelation described is about to come to pass. Liberals always said that if they could just get rid of the Christians (and Republicans) they could lead the world into a Utopia of Socialism By Any Other Name. God is going to give them their chance. He’s going to remove His true Christian believers in the Rapture and then He’s going to let the ultimate liberal a.k.a. Antichrist have at it for seven years of hell on earth. And by the time Jesus returns as King of kings and as Lord of lords, it will be to stop the forces of hell from annihilating planet earth.
The beast is coming. We just voted for him to come in November.
Tags: antichrist, beast, Bible, Christianity, Clint Tarver, cultural diversity, Judeo-Christianity, last days, post-Christian culture, Steven Crowder, unions
December 11, 2012 at 12:04 pm
I worship only Jesus & no one else. Jesus is # 1 and always will be…Satan as well as Obama & the Democrats that voted for him can all kiss my Royal American Butt. After all they are NOTHING but Raciest American Hating BIGOTS.They should all be tossed in to the middle of the ocean with the Sharks.
December 11, 2012 at 1:29 pm
I don’t know. I end up incurring enmity from both sides of the fence when I say stuff like…
I have Democrat relatives that are arguably Christians. My cousin is a preacher, a preacher’s wife really. Their kids turned out homosexual. I don’t know what a person would do or say about that. Seems like it would be quite the predicament for a preacher. (is that uppercase P?) Anyway, their solution was to normalize the lifestyle. I don’t know how much of the congregation went along with it. They probably passed off some variation of the theme … Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins… we are all sinners, who is to say their sins are any worse than our sins… judgement belongs to God and God alone.
In my creepy judgmental mind, Ma and Pa Preacher have made an end run around Christ’s forgiveness of sin. I think Jesus said “go and sin no more.” But these guys have somehow construed an endorsement of sin. Whatever.
Even creepier. Some time ago I was on one of these email newsletter mailing lists. You know how sometimes they get published or sent with all of the recipients’ addresses exposed in the address list. Anyway, I get in an argument on that ad hoc forum with a self purported Christian about Social Security. This Christian was a Public Sector worker. In my mind public sector workers are 98 percent Democrats. In the forum,I went on my tirade about how the public sector doesn’t pay Social Security like the rest of had to for the entirety of our working lives. At least in my state, state workers don’t pay. So I argues that state workers were shirking on the obligation that the rest of us shoulder to keep or protect the elderly and infirm from poverty.
Christian Democrat replies to the effect. “I think that it should just be like in the old days when the elderly just move back in with their children if there are hard times.” Ick! This is from the “people” who claim to represent the poor and oppressed working class. They invented a tax that they won’t pay all the while taking credit for having invented it. I bet Christian Democrat could afford a Harley or an premium SUV by not having to worry about the Grandma and Grandpa tax. Public Sector workers only have to worry about whether Grandma and Grandpa will pony up with their last dime to take care of the state’s unfunded pension liability.
I don’t want to hear about Christianity from these guys. I don’t care how Biblically correct they think they are.
December 11, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Liberals are definitely satan’s physical emissaries on planet earth to spread his perverted gospel. Liberals don’t realize how badly they have been deceived by the vast army of demonic forces, the hosts of hell. I literally equate liberal with demonic. After all, it is demon spirits that are working through each pathetic liberal. As we both know, liberals and the democratic party hate God and will usher in the beast.
Satan is the most gifted deceiver. He can make lies seem like truth and bad seem good. This great ability led 1/3 of the angels to follow him, it deceived Adam and Eve and brought sin into the world, and, in the end, it will cause the whole world to worship him.
Democrats have a great advantage on Republicans, as they are backed by the ultimate liar and deceiver and it shows. Soon the truth will be nearly impossible to discern and God will allow it because man has turned away from Him. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man.
Satan has been using liberals to try and bring the Judgement of God on this nation by getting it to break covenants. For a long time, the U.S. has been a protector of Israel. This will no longer be the case and God will curse America for that. This curse will be amplified when Obama tries to force Israel to give up and divide more land which is a big no-no of God. Another covenant is marriage. Libs are pissing right on it, as they will soon make gay marriage legal everywhere. Libs are also trying to take God completely out of government and replacing it with worship of the state. This is just the short list. but almost everything the Libs stand for is at enmity with God. Actually, everything is.
When trying to actually understand the nature of liberals, you have to understand their source, and that source is satan.
I literally can’t stand this country anymore – what it is becoming – and wish we could just start the Tribulation and get it over with.
December 11, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Anna Bennett,
I understand what you’re saying, and I also understand the bitterness that you feel.
This was God’s will. It wasn’t “what God wanted to happen,” but rather it is what has to happen because the time before Antichrist is short. The Tribulation is the vehicle that God will use to accomplish His plan to once and for all judge and abolish evil. It will be hell on earth, but it must take place. And in the same way, to get to the Tribulation we have to suffer through the Obama who will bring it to pass so that the final Antichrist can come riding in on his white horse a la Revelation 6 to fix the ruins Obama’s policies will leave the world in.
I’m trying to get past being angry and just realize that I need to be a more spiritual Christian in the time we’ve got left on this earth before the Rapture.
Paul described Democrats to a “T” when he described those who were blinded by the god of this age in 2 Cor 4:4. They’re just slaves who serve their master, is all. And as easy as it is to be angry at them, they’re not the ones Jesus wants us to be angry at.
December 11, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Dog Walker,
There will be a lot of people who call themselves “Christians” who will most definitely NOT be going up with Christ at the Rapture. And that’s because they may have called themselves “Christians” – and I could lay down in my garage and start calling myself a “car” – but they have nothing in common with Jesus.
It’s an easy “out” to assert that “anybody who embarasses Christianity isn’t really a real Christian,” I know. And stated that way, it is sadly not true. Christians are flawed people and in fact Christianity is the only faith or philosophy that requires one to first present himself as being an unworthy sinner who deserves death in order to be allowed to “join” the faith.
You mentioned the “preacher” whose kids turned out to be homosexual. Well, I won’t say that it is impossible for a Christian pastor’s child to develop homosexuality, but what I CAN say is that the Christian response to homosexuality is to first acknowledge that homosexuality is a sinful and broken act, not call upon their congregation “to normalize the lifestyle.” There are a lot of pastors who won’t be with Jesus at the Rapture, sadly. I have heard people professing themselves to be “Christian” who tore the Bible to shreds in order to twist and distort it into agreeing with what they wanted it to say – especially when it comes to homosexuality.
As a true Christian, I first confess that my Bible is truth. And when I undermine my Bible to make what God clearly called an “abomination” okay, I undermine everything else that it teaches, such as Jesus dying for my sins so I can have new life with God.
As to the “Christian Democrat” who tries to turn “care for the poor” into socialism, well, that’s what Obama and Jeremiah Wright did with their Liberation Theology. Jesus was not a Marxist. Jesus did not try to create a giant big government socialist welfare state that would destroy and pervert the work ethic and punish those who worked hard and made society better so He could redistribute their wealth and give it to parasitic couch potatoes. There is in fact NO place that says that in all the Bible. And when you consider passages such as 1 Samual chapter 8 (where God warns the people against a socialist king warning again and again, “he will TAKE”) or 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat”), you should see how wrong and UN-Christian that is.
We should care for the poor. That is true. But WE should care for the poor out of OUR OWN RESOURCES. And anybody who says instead, “We should erect a giant welfare state to care for the poor” can go take his “Christianity” right into the toilet bowl.
December 11, 2012 at 11:39 pm
FMC,
Antichrist will give the beast his power (see Rev 13:4). And a great deal of Satan’s power is his ability to deceive the wicked with lies. Antichrist will be able to so tie and tangle the truth in knots that only a true believer devoted to the will of Christ will be able to know the truth.
As I’ve said a number of times on this blog, it is the nature of bad people to believe lies. Liberals are bad people with bad priorities. They want to murder babies and have murdered 55 million and they want to impose the sodomy agenda on the American family.
I’m not going to go so far as to say, “I can’t stand America,” but I know what you mean. I am really not worried about a country that I know is going to face massive judgment for massive wickedness. I’m not hoping something terrible happens to the country I was born in and live in and which my family and friends live in, but I’ve moved beyond worrying about it. Now, I’m thinking more about the OTHER place where a far, far better citizenship lies.
December 12, 2012 at 4:12 pm
The problem with the Republican Party is precisely that it has become the “Christian Party” which happens to be more in line with the Satanic doctrines of Randian Objectivism.
And if you feel there is nothing wrong with Rand or the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged, perhaps you should be reminded that it was Anton Lavey who quipped in an interview “I give them Rand, with trappings.”
You know who was the most upset with the “You didn’t build that.” remark: Evangelicals. Yet, God tells us that we didn’t build it either. The truth was that Barack Obama was correct in his statement. I’m no fan of his, but he expressed the truth. No, government doesn’t get the credit either, but in Deuteronomy 8, God has this to say:
17And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. 18But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
No man has money because of his own efforts. The wealthy are just God’s Trust Fund Kids. It’s a tough pill to swallow. Warren Buffett wouldn’t have a dime outside of God’s will for him to be steward over those funds.
Furthermore, I never saw Paul or Jesus advocate for political power. These so-called “Christian” Republicans manipulate religious conservatives for their own ends. These are the wealthy that the book of James warns us about, and in the end, when their power is threatened, we will see the true colors of the GOP. Christians are leaning on the staff of Egypt, and when that staff splinters, it’ll rend their sides.
Political power was what the disciples thought Christ came for. I may be amiss, but I don’t see any of the apostles counseling Christians to go into political office as a career. Over and over again, political influence is largely referred to as a wholly separate agency from which the Church is separate and distinct.
They are subject to the powers of government, not a part of it, from the perspective of the New Testament. Not that there aren’t godly men and women serving. It’s just not actively encouraged by the bible.
As to the abortion issue, I see many loud Christians who are Pro-life, but so far, very few who are willing to take on an unwanted child as their own. There are many in orphanages right now who want a loving home.
At the same time, they want to keep gay people from adopting these children, even though these people are more than willing to.
If any reading this post have adopted, may God bless you for putting your faith in the issue into action.
However, if abortion is ended tomorrow, how many of us are willing to take these children into our homes? Are anti-tax Christians willing to take on the sacrifice of more government orphanages? Just a question, as we are called to provide for the fatherless and the widow.
There are many fatherless in the inner cities now, but all I see is people telling them “You made your bed, now lie in it.” It’s not a Christlike attitude.
As to the “If a man shall not work, he shall not eat.” this refers to a communal lifestyle within the early church. These were believers leeching off other believers. Unbelievers are not held to this standard.
I don’t believe in a “social gospel” where we ignore the spiritual needs of people in favor of the physical. I do believe that taking care of the poor means going beyond welfare. Welfare funds, whether we like it or not, are our responsibilities to “render unto Caesar”.
Caring for the poor and the fatherless is rendering unto God, regardless of what we have rendered unto Caesar, whether we feel the poor are “deserving” of it or not.
If the so-called “welfare queen” is still poor, and her children are fatherless (regardless of how they came to be that way), then whether they are deserving or not is not the issue whatsoever.
We are Christians first, American second, and our prejudices and affiliations come last. The talking points of Limbaugh and Hannity are not our concern. Republicans are largely blinded by the “god of this age”, and the “god of this age” is all about self: How much will this cost me? I built this. I deserve that. I won’t stand for this.
I am as guilty of being blinded by it as anyone, and no, I am not even close to being a Democrat.
December 12, 2012 at 9:12 pm
It’s kind of sad that I can’t get past just one sentence of yours, let alone two, without finding you spouting garbage that is completely untrue.
What is my reaction to Ayn Rand as a Christian? I can actually amply testify by my own prior remarks:
I responded to somebody who called himself “deathspud” who was making your same assertion on January 19, 2011:
And the funny thing is, you are the first person to try to throw this Ayn Rand crap at me since then. And the remark I quoted from myself was made in January 31, 2009 – two years before the one I quote here that I got a year ago. And that’s about all the Ayn Rand baloney I’ve dealt with. Which kind of shows how utterly nonexistent Ayn Rand is to either this blog or conservatives in general or evangelical Christian Republicans in particular. And it is just as dishonest for you to do as it was for dumbspud to do.
You just made a completely false and dishonest charge as the fundamental basis of the whole rest of your point.
There most definitely ARE “Ayn Rand” libertarians (“conservatives,” for the record, are the opposite of Ayn Rand, standing as they do for moral social values). But they have nothing to do with me and they are but one small part of the libertarian movement, which is itself at best a very small part of “Republicans.”
You are a complete quack for tying me to Ayn Rand. I’ve had tens of thousands of comments and out of all of that just you three loons.
I posted your comment and responded to it, but I’m not going to allow you to assert lies as your foundation for your other lies and interact with you as if you were an honest debating opponent.
Fwiw, your very NEXT statement after that about Barack Obama being completely correct with his “If you own a business, you didn’t build that” bullcrap:
In other words, the only reason that you assert that Obama was somehow correct to utter his garbage is because you are not anywhere near intelligent to understand grammar. And again, there is simply no reason to waste time with you.
December 12, 2012 at 11:47 pm
The only one that I Worship is JESUS & if obama & the union thugs don’t like it they can all KISS MY BUTT.
I am a Republican & very Proud of it.
They have NO right telling people that they can not work with out a union,all they do is take money from the hard working Americans for dues & don’t do a DAME for the people.
After all like obama the union thugs are a bunch of racist American hating bigots.
December 13, 2012 at 11:46 am
“Liberals are definitely satan’s physical emissaries on planet earth to spread his perverted gospel. Liberals don’t realize how badly they have been deceived by the vast army of demonic forces, the hosts of hell. I literally equate liberal with demonic. After all, it is demon spirits that are working through each pathetic liberal. As we both know, liberals and the democratic party hate God and will usher in the beast.”
I understand the sentiment.
The great practical difficulty for me is this: They are both victims of the Enemy and pawns of the Enemy. God calls us to love our enemies, and that love is exemplified by the Great Commission and faithful sharing of the whole Gospel.
It’s not that easy to wield both the figurative sword on one hand and carry the Bible in the other hand whilst engaging these liberal pawns/victims of the Enemy.
December 13, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Truth Unites… and Divides,
Of course, you’re right. There is simply no question that you’re right.
There are a great many ways in the Christian walk that we are called upon to walk a tightrope. As an example, take Paul and James, faith and works. Exactly how much faith versus how many works? How many of us walk that line perfectly even in our theology, let alone our conduct??? God commanded His people to fight and even kill in the Old Testament. And even Jesus Himself used angry physical force to clean out His Temple; what balance should we strike, given the fact that it is neither categorically absolutely wrong to use force nor is it categorically right to NEVER use force. There’s a tension even philosphically; but that tension gets really intense in the world of nearly infinitne situations.
This is another of those ways. We’re supposed to be salt preserve our culture. We’re supposed to stand up for the truth and argue for it. But then there’s that whole “turn the other cheek” teaching that says wait a minute, I have to have a balance.
One of the things I have come to appreciate is that the Bible doesn’t patronize us: it doesn’t tell us that our enemies really aren’t our enemies, after all. It comes right out and calls them “enemies.” And then it tells us to do the last thing that would ever come to our natural minds to do with our enemies: love them.
I spent basically the last five years of my blogging trying to fight to prevent what has already happened and what will now continue to happen at an even faster rate. And as I prayed for this election, it often occurred to me that we may just be in the last days, and God would say, “I gave America and the world far more opportunities that it deserved, and they spurned Me.” And that now might simply be the time of the eschaton to begin.
I believe that that is precisely what happened. I think that God brought that hurricane knowing full well that it would turn the race around. Romney was up substantially in most of the polls, but his momentum was stalled and Obama was able to put on his “commander in chief” jacket and make a bunch of appearances and say a bunch of rhetoric. And it became an example of God giving man a warning and man perverting that warning to his own agenda. And now we’re truly in the undiscovered country of the very last days just before everything comes crashing down and Antichrist appears because of our stupid and immoral choices. The Bible talked about it and pretty soon the world is going to see what the Tribulation looks like.
I’ve been angry for quite a while because I now see just how stupid and pathetic we human beings truly are as we keep choosing the Antichrist over the real Christ again and again until we’re finally at Armageddon wondering what happened. And, yeah, the patheticness and sheer apathy and sheer stupidity make me angry.
I’ve resolved to stop that. Liberals are evil; they are our enemies; they ARE advancing Satan’s agenda. But God didn’t call me to be angry. And we’re now to the point where we simply cannot win because to win we’ve got to be as angry and as bitter and as violent as the left is and we who are destined for heaven simply cannot match the anger and bitterness and hate of those who are destined for hell. We can’t use their tactics against them because their tactics are the devils and flawed as we are we don’t work for the devil.
I’m finding myself angry less and less now because I finally understand that my role as a Christian isn’t to try to stop the demonic agenda by trying to reason with the world and the people that Satan dominates. I still DO get angry, but I’m getting better. The beast is going to come. The world is going to worship him. God’s Word says so.
Revelation 13:10 is fascinating. The New Living Translation puts it this way:
What this is saying is that God has in His sovereignty of judgment put the Antichrist in place and given Satan his “chance” on earth. And if the beast puts you in prison or kills you, then God has allowed him to do so. And the true Christian is not to fight back or resist.
I frankly believe we’re there now. I’m done fighting for America. Politics is now a game in which the ones with the most diseased souls win. Now I’m going to try to be a Kingdom warrior and fight with Christ and His Word rather than with the way the world fights.
Which is my way of saying I completely agree with you and I’m trying to get the rest of me to line up with my deepest beliefs as a Christian. We are to love our enemies even as they usher in Antichrist and prepare to worship him. Because Christ loved His enemies even as they were pounding nails into His wrists and feet and hoisting Him up to die an agonizing death. And because He loved me even when I was His enemy.
December 14, 2012 at 10:59 am
“Which is my way of saying I completely agree with you and I’m trying to get the rest of me to line up with my deepest beliefs as a Christian.”
Thanks. And I wrestle with the same tension as you do and in the same manner as you do too.
Praying for wisdom and courage and love when dealing with Liberal pawns/victims of the Enemy…. Eph. 5 armor… and battling principalities and powers… and real-life flesh of friends, neighbors, family, and our human sin.
Continue to Fight the Good Fight, my friend and brother-in-Christ.
December 14, 2012 at 11:09 am
You people have sent me this same e-mail at least 10 times now. I want you to stop so many repeated e-mails.
December 15, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Truth Unites… and Divides,
Christ is all we’ve got now. The decline and impending fall of America guarantees that.
Of course, Christ always WAS all that we ever had that really mattered.
Anger is and always was an illusion; when one is raging one has the illusion of feeling more powerful and more in control. When the exact opposite is true.
My way of thinking – as is yours also, brother – is to really begin to focus on that which is fundamentally important.
That means worrying more about what Jesus is doing in the world and less worrying about the next nefarious Democrat scheme to finish their takeover.
December 15, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Anna Bennett,
You might get another one because of my comment.
I don’t know what you’re talking about (I assure you that I haven’t sent you ANY emails), but I have a feeling you might have checked a WordPress box somewhere (and I mean ANYWHERE) that notified you of any new comments to an article that you commented on.
I’ve got that stuff turned off here, but I belong to a motorcycle forum that took me a while to figure out how to end the “automatic notification” that sent me emails notifying me there’d been a new comment. And the problem was I didn’t really care if there was a new comment, just like you apparently don’t…
But for the record, I’m not the one sending emails out. In fact, somebody please kill me if I ever decide that I want to send out mass emails.